Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what drives Brexit, and what has driven anti-EU sentiment in the UK over many years.
Brexit is about the politics of who decides, not cold calculations about finances. Fisheries are of limited economic impact (although this is in part because the CFP has fostered an environment where that could become so) but their political impact in north east Scotland, for example, is enormous. In fact its impact in Scotland as a whole, and the whole union question, shouldn't be underestimated; if UK Gov eventually concedes on this it will be rightly used by the SNP to hammer the Scottish Tories for a betrayal (quite regardless of the fact that the SNP is pro-EU membership, and therefore membership of the CFP).
Beyond Scottish politics, or politics more generally, for an island nation, who makes the laws that affect our territorial waters and our exclusive economic zone are of immense symbolic importance.
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I think there's also been a deliberate positioning of necessary stock management in order to cultivate anti-EU sentiment. I more than appreciate that Brexit is not about economics.
Obviously, fishing impacts small areas quite dramatically which is why it does not make sense for French fishermen for the switch to be turned off overnight but to ensure a managed change to a new system or for British fishermen to lose access to the markets where most of its catches are sold.